Blood Rituals

In the early 1900's the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn gets involved in geopolitics

It was the dawn of a new era, the Electric Age, brought to life by tinkerers and inventors and now widely commercialized into a full-fledged industry, working its way into lighting lamps along sidewalks and city streets and soon into the homes of every individual. Long gone were the belching furnaces of coal and whale oil lamps that had blanketed the cities of Europe in thick haze and smog. Electricity was clean, cheap, easy to transport, and widely abundant, generated centrally by great churning dynamos and then snaked through hundreds of miles of cables that twinned telegraph lines that had become at first an eye-sore, and then a commonplace sight over the streets of Europe.

Yet already there were new powers on the horizon, new forms of energy being harnessed by scientific curiosity turned to engineering practice. Aetheric energy flowed through the leylines of Earth, channeled between the magnetic field lines and the planets gravitational potential, sent streaming down into the gathering places and city halls through roof-top spires and copper antennas that dotted the rooftops. Aetheric energy was so much more than just electricity - it invigorated the mind, the body, the spirit. It enhanced the abilities of perception and creativity, elevated the soul of the individual to dream grander and greater than ever before. At the turn of the 20th century citizens buzzed with the bold ideas of enfranchisement of the working class, uplifting them from poverty wrought in the early age of industrialism. The scientific age turned to industrial might now brought about a new era of enlightenment, of charity and compassion, nation states putting aside long-standing feuds and collaborating on great works like World Fairs that created for the first time a new kind of global citizenry.

There was a vitality and vigor coursing through the veins of every red blooded Westerner like never before. “Aetheric Energy Healing Devices Cure All Ailments” the newspaper headlines read, long lines forming outside the government sanctioned apothecariums that were sprouting up like market stalls in every town square. Healing the sick, curing the wounded, regaining lost senses of sight or smell, invigorating the elderly and reclaiming the glowing youth of the middle-aged. Already new patents were issued forth by Nikola Tesla that could harness this freely abundant energy source and convert it directly into electrical power through mercury vapor condensers, although difficult and expensive to produce were able to supply the electrical needs of a house for free, indefinitely. Looming on the horizon at Wardenclyffe Tower in New England Tesla’s latest invention was being put to the test - a device able to harness colossal quantities of aetheric energy and broadcast it to cheap and easy-to-manufacture receiver arrays over hundreds of miles, converted directly into AC power.

The war of the currents was coming to an end, the business model of Edison disrupted, the oil tycoons put in their place as electrical powered cars and trolleybusses would soon have unlimited range by the installation of durable aetheric antennas, powered at a distance by Tesla Towers. All for free.

At a banking house in Paris, a meeting behind closed doors took place.

“Come to order, come to order,” the legendary financier said, ensconced on his studded leather chair with pocket-watch and gold chain dangling from his waist coat. J.P. Morgan had seen the rise and fall of empires while he had built his own and now held sway over the kings and queens of Europe, and the President of America himself.

Seated around the table were John D. Rockefeller, owner of Standard Oil; Otto Herman Kahnn, international banker and bond-broker of railways, utilities, and public works; Jacob Schiff, financier of the Russo-Japanese War who had earned a fortune selling arms to both sides; Paul Warburg, architect of the Federal Reserve Act of the United States; Sir Ernest Cassel, advisor to the Chancellor of Germany and broker of many an international trade agreement; and Sir Edgard Speyer, German born and London based who operated munitions factories that had armed the stockpiles of all the major European Powers. Seated at the end of the table the brooding figure Baron Nathaniel Mayer Rothschild and on either side his sons, Edmond and Alphonso, each a power-broker and influence-dealer bar none. In this room stood the true powers behind the politics of Europe and the Americas. Pacing the length of the table and bristling with fury, Thomas Edison with his hands clasped behind his back, lost deep in thought calculating the mounting losses of his burgeoning commercial empire that stood on the brink of ruin, laid low by aetheric energy innovated and distributed freely by Tesla.

“This Tesla chap ought to be stopped outright. It’s un-American, this business of his,” said Rockefeller, seeing the future clearly were the oil-powered DC dynamos, automobiles, ships and industries to be replaced with free energy.

The conversation was terse. Each man stood to lose their family fortune if energy - the wellspring of all civilizational abundance and prosperity - were to suddenly come from the sky and be distributed for free. What need would the world have of bankers, oil tycoons, financiers, and industrialists if the price of every good were halved, quartered, decimated? If the supply of energy couldn’t be controlled then no nation could be embargoed from oil; if national pressure couldn’t be brought to bear then one-sided trade agreements would never be levered into place. Trade was the source of all wealth and the men in the room were intent on controlling the flow of that wealth for themselves.

“Edison, can it be metered? Can we stop the flow?” asked Speyer. Edison shook his head sadly. It came from the sky, flowed as freely as the wind, and Tesla had been the one to figure it out. The world was on the brink of revolution, of a new wave of enlightenment and liberty. It would dethrone the power brokers from their positions of influence for good.

“We have a way of dealing with such things” said Rothschild family patriarch. “Bring him in.”

The double doors opened wide and in strode a figure clad all in black, heavy chains hung from his neck, tattoos on his hands blended into lace sleeves. He was a figure out of place, out of time. The room grew cold. Edison looked up with fascination, paying attention for the first time.

“Blood for blood. Steel for steel. The armies of Europe will march under these orders. The fate of nation sealed. A slaughter of ten million men or more. Cities laid waste. Devastation. Ruin. The end of the coming age. The birth of one anew. The old powers will remain the same. All I ask is your fealty.”

The words of Aleister Crowley filled the room like smoke. The bankers and financiers were chilled. The Rothschilds sat amused. They had dealt with his kind before.

“Can it be guaranteed? What assurances can we have you keep your word?” asked J.P. Morgan, always the pragmatic American.

“I deal in probabilities, good sir. I am a man of chaos. Chaos is a ladder to creation. My word is as good as my will. And my will is everything. It can be done, for a price. You will have your war. You will have your opportunity to seize the arms of industry. To glut the men of Europe. To shed their blood on fields of mud.”

The room full of men looked around at each other, bewildered. The Rothschilds simply smiled. In the age of science and industry there were not many families left that knew the Dark Arts and how to employ them. Each of these magnates would be theirs, permanently. The flow of sacrifices would begin, drawn from the slums of the factory-working poor, the orphanages, the brothels, the workhouses. Innocent victims that would not be missed, taken into places of charity that bore the name of their benefactors, the true purpose forever concealed. The munitions factories would work overtime for years. The flow of oil would be controlled. The financiers and bondsmen richly rewarded. The many-armed tendrils of industry held sway under a seal of magic only the Rothschilds knew.

In Sarajevo the ritual took place, an incantation in a starred circle, an orderly progression of cloaked figures, the bodies of the young and innocent already drained and lying still, motionless, at each point of the pentagram. At it’s center stood Gavrilo Principe. His duty was clear. The worldlines of fate had been woven. It was now inevitable. No matter which way the carriage of Franz Ferdinand took in those cobblestone streets, it would find its way to him. And he would be ready.

The Great War was about to begin.